The point is that what was once a life's calling is being reduced to a hobby. All these activities were more than hobbies, for example for people like myself solving significant math problems all day or at least for a…
Ok, but science is not intuitive for humans. Things like hunting, or picking up sticks is because they've been evolved for many hundreds of thousands of years. I'd give science a few thousand years at most. Something…
what is the point of organizing results into something other researchers can use if other researchers aren't going to be doing research and research can be delegated to LLMs? (a la - humans are the bottleneck)
what is your "inherent value" to society?
I agree - to quote my goat Paul Halmos: "Don't just read it; fight it! Ask your own questions, look for your own examples, discover your own proofs. Is the hypothesis necessary? Is the converse true? What happens in the…
Ok, most PhD students don't consistently work 80 hours a week (although a good number occasionally do, say before a paper deadline) - I'll retract that. But they still work very hard, while many are capable of working…
There can be something satisfying about typing on a keyboard just like writing (calligraphy) can be satisfying. For example, I love writing on a chalkboard. But it's not my primary reason to do what I do. So I think the…
I don't understand your last part about the hagia sophia
I will say, as a mathematician who likes to make simulations, this part of GenAI has been a boom. At the same time, I do wish it wouldn't do my proofs as well lmao
I guess when I said what you quoted, I meant for most people (developed and developing world) throughout history, or at least as long as "work" has existed.
maybe demand will catch up over time. who knows. same thing probably happened with mass production of clothes and whatnot.
Don't really see much of a reason to keep going. LLMs basically have the whole mathematical corpus internalized, and can just practice endlessly through RL self play and autoformalization. Don't really see what my role…
Eh, mathematicians themselves have started embracing it. Terence Tao talks about how LLMs will be on the frontlines, proving new results and humans will just be there to digest and explain them (if the LLMs don't end up…
Sure, this is in agreement with some people's view that math will become an empirical science. Basically humans probing/mining the brain of an LLM.
PhD student in math here. Doing LLM math is soulless and takes most of the fun out of solving difficult problems (for the most part - my opinion only, I'm happy to talk to mathematicians who like this kind of work). But…
Sure it is a construct (it's how I feel at least). I didn't mean to say sewing and knitting weren't impactful - on the contrary, they are analogous to programming: they were impactful but now they're basically hobbies.…
Fair enough. I don't mean to speak for all programmers (I'm not one). In fact I'm an academic so that's probably why I'm upset.
yes, that's my point.
when i say haven't worked a day in their life, I mean it in terms of the aphorism "if you love what you'll do you'll never work a day in your life".
I'm not saying we're advancing anything. I'm just saying that before programmer feelings used to be aligned with advancing society: fun work (for some people) was useful work. Now that's starting to be decoupled and it…
for sure but the point is that sewing isn't really necessary anymore. if all the knitters disappeared tomorrow, the majority of society wouldn't feel it . If (say a few years ago) all SWEs disappeared, that would be a…
probably not, but my main gripe would be that there would be no way to punish anyone if something went wrong with the car, not (necessarily) that human judgement or expertise is still needed as part of the car design…
No you're right - I guess I meant moreso that you seemed to be expressing incredulity that people live this way. It's natural to identify with something you spend the majority of your day doing (especially if you like…
but so many things we have are black boxes now. do people need to understand how cars work to drive them properly? And even if you understand how it works, how does it affect your day-to-day function or the advancement…
that probably makes it feel even worse for most people imagine spending years to develop mastery of something that anyone can do now? It's easy to say that such people are prideful, arrogant, only cares about being…
The point is that what was once a life's calling is being reduced to a hobby. All these activities were more than hobbies, for example for people like myself solving significant math problems all day or at least for a…
Ok, but science is not intuitive for humans. Things like hunting, or picking up sticks is because they've been evolved for many hundreds of thousands of years. I'd give science a few thousand years at most. Something…
what is the point of organizing results into something other researchers can use if other researchers aren't going to be doing research and research can be delegated to LLMs? (a la - humans are the bottleneck)
what is your "inherent value" to society?
I agree - to quote my goat Paul Halmos: "Don't just read it; fight it! Ask your own questions, look for your own examples, discover your own proofs. Is the hypothesis necessary? Is the converse true? What happens in the…
Ok, most PhD students don't consistently work 80 hours a week (although a good number occasionally do, say before a paper deadline) - I'll retract that. But they still work very hard, while many are capable of working…
There can be something satisfying about typing on a keyboard just like writing (calligraphy) can be satisfying. For example, I love writing on a chalkboard. But it's not my primary reason to do what I do. So I think the…
I don't understand your last part about the hagia sophia
I will say, as a mathematician who likes to make simulations, this part of GenAI has been a boom. At the same time, I do wish it wouldn't do my proofs as well lmao
I guess when I said what you quoted, I meant for most people (developed and developing world) throughout history, or at least as long as "work" has existed.
maybe demand will catch up over time. who knows. same thing probably happened with mass production of clothes and whatnot.
Don't really see much of a reason to keep going. LLMs basically have the whole mathematical corpus internalized, and can just practice endlessly through RL self play and autoformalization. Don't really see what my role…
Eh, mathematicians themselves have started embracing it. Terence Tao talks about how LLMs will be on the frontlines, proving new results and humans will just be there to digest and explain them (if the LLMs don't end up…
Sure, this is in agreement with some people's view that math will become an empirical science. Basically humans probing/mining the brain of an LLM.
PhD student in math here. Doing LLM math is soulless and takes most of the fun out of solving difficult problems (for the most part - my opinion only, I'm happy to talk to mathematicians who like this kind of work). But…
Sure it is a construct (it's how I feel at least). I didn't mean to say sewing and knitting weren't impactful - on the contrary, they are analogous to programming: they were impactful but now they're basically hobbies.…
Fair enough. I don't mean to speak for all programmers (I'm not one). In fact I'm an academic so that's probably why I'm upset.
yes, that's my point.
when i say haven't worked a day in their life, I mean it in terms of the aphorism "if you love what you'll do you'll never work a day in your life".
I'm not saying we're advancing anything. I'm just saying that before programmer feelings used to be aligned with advancing society: fun work (for some people) was useful work. Now that's starting to be decoupled and it…
for sure but the point is that sewing isn't really necessary anymore. if all the knitters disappeared tomorrow, the majority of society wouldn't feel it . If (say a few years ago) all SWEs disappeared, that would be a…
probably not, but my main gripe would be that there would be no way to punish anyone if something went wrong with the car, not (necessarily) that human judgement or expertise is still needed as part of the car design…
No you're right - I guess I meant moreso that you seemed to be expressing incredulity that people live this way. It's natural to identify with something you spend the majority of your day doing (especially if you like…
but so many things we have are black boxes now. do people need to understand how cars work to drive them properly? And even if you understand how it works, how does it affect your day-to-day function or the advancement…
that probably makes it feel even worse for most people imagine spending years to develop mastery of something that anyone can do now? It's easy to say that such people are prideful, arrogant, only cares about being…